Laurel Venable hadn’t planned to vanish, only to slip away unnoticed. But the farther she got from Tula City, the more the silence felt like a trap. She’d left behind a name, a history, and a body that wasn’t hers to claim. In Tula, she was dead. Murdered, they said. And no one had questioned it. That was the point. Now, every mile she put between herself, and the truth felt like a borrowed breath. If anyone found out what she’d done, what she’d become, the lie would collapse, and with it, everything she’d risked to protect. She wasn’t running from justice. She was running from recognition.